I’ve spent more than 20 years getting comfortable with the work.

Give me a technical problem, a broken integration, a website that needs rebuilding or an idea that needs to become something real and I’m happy.

I can sit down, put my head down and figure it out.

People are harder.

One thing I’ve had to admit since starting Bunker41 is that networking is probably one of my biggest weaknesses.

Which is a bit inconvenient when you’re trying to build a business.

I’m pretty introverted. I don’t naturally walk into a room and start introducing myself to strangers. Sending a message to someone I don’t know can somehow feel more uncomfortable than spending hours debugging a ridiculous problem in code.

My instinct has always been to let the work speak for itself.

The problem is the work can’t speak to people who don’t know it exists.

I was posting, but I wasn’t really networking

When I started becoming more active on LinkedIn, I mostly treated it as a place to publish.

Write something.

Post it.

Check the reactions.

Move on.

That was comfortable because it was still mostly one-way communication.

Over the past month, I’ve been trying to change that.

I’ve been answering more comments. Responding to DMs instead of leaving them sitting there because I’m not sure what to say. Connecting with new people and actually asking what they do.

I’ve even started reaching out first sometimes.

That still feels weird.

But I’ve also had some genuinely good conversations.

Developers building businesses of their own. People running agencies. People trying to build something on the side while working full time. Business owners trying to figure out where AI fits into what they do.

Not every conversation is going anywhere.

And I’m starting to realize that’s kind of the point.

I had the wrong idea about networking

For years, when I heard “networking,” I pictured name tags, business cards and a room full of people trying to work out what everyone else could do for them.

That has never appealed to me.

I don’t want every conversation to become a sales pitch.

I don’t want to message someone I’ve never spoken to and immediately ask if they need a website.

And I don’t want to pretend to be interested in somebody because they might become a client someday.

That feels fake.

What I’ve been doing lately feels different.

Someone comments on something I wrote. I respond. We talk. Maybe we connect. Maybe we keep in touch.

Maybe six months from now one of us remembers the other when something comes up.

Or maybe nothing ever comes from it.

That’s okay.

I think I’m finally understanding that networking doesn’t have to mean collecting leads.

Sometimes it’s just getting to know good people.

That I can get behind.

A one-person business still needs people

There’s a funny contradiction in building a one-person business.

Yes, I want to see how much I can build on my own.

That’s a big part of Bunker41 and a big part of why I started writing One Person, Real Business.

But doing business alone doesn’t mean building in isolation.

I still need clients.

I need people who know what I do.

I need designers, developers and other specialists I trust if a project eventually gets bigger than what I can reasonably handle myself.

I need people I can send work to when something isn’t right for me.

And I need people who have already made some of the mistakes I’m probably going to make.

That network matters.

Maybe more than I gave it credit for.

My first major Bunker41 client didn’t come from advertising, SEO or some complicated marketing funnel.

It came through a relationship.

That should probably tell me something.

Hiding behind the work is easy

This is probably the biggest trap for me.

There is always something I can build instead.

I can improve the website.

Tweak a process.

Build another feature.

Try another tool.

Start another product.

All of that feels productive because I’m comfortable doing it.

Reaching out to someone and saying, “Hey, I liked what you wrote,” somehow feels less like work.

But building another feature nobody asked for isn’t necessarily more useful than talking to somebody who might teach me something, introduce me to someone, work with me someday or simply become a good person to know.

I’ve had to remind myself of that a lot lately.

Because if I’m being realistic, I’m probably not going to build the business I want by sitting quietly in my office waiting for people to discover me.

I don’t need to become an extrovert

I’m not trying to change my personality.

I’m probably never going to be the guy working the room at a huge networking event.

That’s fine.

What I can do is get better at having conversations.

Respond when somebody takes the time to comment.

Ask people what they’re working on.

Reach out when I genuinely find someone or their work interesting.

Keep in touch without needing a reason.

That feels more natural.

And maybe networking as an introvert isn’t about meeting as many people as possible.

Maybe it’s about building a smaller number of real relationships and giving them time.

That’s what I’m trying to do now.

I’m still not great at it.

But over the past month I’ve talked to more new people than I probably have in a long time, and I’m glad I pushed myself to do it.

Some of those conversations will probably go nowhere.

Some might turn into friendships.

Some might turn into referrals, collaborations or clients years from now.

I don’t really know.

And for once, I don’t think I need to.

I’ve spent most of my career learning how to build things.

Maybe this next chapter is learning how to build relationships too.

If you’re an introvert building a business, how do you approach networking without making it feel forced?

I’m sharing the real process of building Bunker41 alongside a career and family through One Person, Real Business — the wins, mistakes, decisions and things I’m still figuring out.

If you’re building something of your own too, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

When I started Bunker41, it was easy to picture the moment I could quit my day job.

Replace my salary. Hand in my notice. Work for myself full time.

The more seriously I think about it, the less simple it becomes.

My job is stable. It pays well, gives my family security and leaves me enough freedom to be present at home. I do not take any of that lightly.

At the same time, after more than two decades in software, I want to see what I can build under my own name. Find the clients, make the decisions and take responsibility for the whole thing. That is a large part of why Bunker41 exists.

Both things can be true. I can appreciate my career and still want to build a business of my own.

The difficult part is knowing when that business is ready to support my family. Wanting it badly does not answer that question.

One client proved something—but not everything

Bunker41 has already crossed an important line: someone paid me to do the work.

I completed my first major client project, built something I am proud of and received a testimonial better than I could have hoped for. The business is no longer just an idea I talk about.

But one successful project does not create a predictable business.

My first client came through a referral. I want more of that, but I also need to understand how to keep work coming in, price it properly and deliver it at a pace I can sustain.

That is the part I have not proven yet.

I used to think the finish line was obvious: once business revenue matched my salary, I could leave.

But business revenue and employment income are not interchangeable. My paycheque arrives on a schedule. My employment also comes with paid time off and benefits I would need to account for myself.

Bunker41 also needs room for expenses, taxes, retirement savings, time off and reinvestment. If I pull every available dollar out of the business just to recreate my paycheque, I have not built something sustainable. I have given myself a more stressful job.

The number that matters is what is left after business expenses, and whether that can reliably cover my family’s needs, taxes and savings. A big invoice on its own tells me very little about that.

What I need to see before I leave

I have started putting some conditions around the decision. They may change as I learn, but today I would want:

● At least six months showing the business can cover its costs and provide the income my household needs

● Enough contracted or recurring work to see roughly three months ahead

● Nine to twelve months of essential household expenses saved

● More than one dependable source of leads

● No single client capable of sinking the business by leaving

● Money set aside for taxes, time off and the expenses my employer currently helps cover

● A family that understands the plan and is comfortable with the risk

I am not waiting for a future in which every month is guaranteed. That does not exist.

I want to know that a quiet month would be manageable. If losing one project would leave us scrambling to pay the bills, I would not feel ready.

Why I am sharing this now

This is the part of building a business I want to share through One Person, Real Business. The decisions before there is a success story to tell.

Right now, client work through Bunker41 is the clearest route I have toward working for myself. I am still figuring out how to make it dependable.

If you are trying to build something alongside a job and family, I hope seeing those decisions is useful. How do you price a project? When do you turn work down? How do you know whether you can afford to leave? Those are questions I am working through too.

I would rather share what I am learning while the outcome is still uncertain than wait until later and make it all sound obvious.

There may come a point when I have enough demand to justify giving Bunker41 my full working week. Until then, my job gives me room to turn down bad-fit work, learn and build without forcing the business to pay all of my bills before it is ready.

I still want to work for myself. I am just not willing to confuse taking the biggest risk with taking the goal seriously.

For now, I am one major client project in. I want the next one, and I want to learn enough from each to make this a real option for my family.

What would need to be true before you felt ready to leave your day job?

If you are building a business alongside your job, subscribe to One Person, Real Business for honest updates on the decisions, experiments and lessons along the way.

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Recently, I received a request for a proposal from a non-profit. Looking at the work they needed and the budget available, I knew I’d be contributing a fair amount of my time without being paid for it.

I considered it anyway. It was a chance to help an organisation do something worthwhile. I could treat some of the work as an in-kind contribution, complete another project, and potentially earn a testimonial.

But I decided not to submit.

The money was part of the calculation. The bigger issue was the time. I’m building Bunker41 alongside my engineering job and family responsibilities, and I’ve set hard boundaries around how much of my life the business gets.

This project didn’t fit within them.

That’s an uncomfortable decision when you’re still figuring out how to bring in clients. I want the work. I want to build a reputation. Turning down an opportunity can seem at odds with both of those things.

But I also have to look at what I’m agreeing to deliver. If the budget doesn’t cover the work, and I’m willing to make up the difference myself, those hours still have to come from somewhere. Calling them a contribution doesn’t make them any easier to find.

In my forties, I’m more aware of that than ever. Time has become my most expensive currency. I can be flexible about what I charge when there’s a good reason. I have much less flexibility about how much time I can give.

A testimonial would have been useful. It wouldn’t have given me those hours back.

I need to choose what I can reasonably contribute. For this project, I couldn’t justify the commitment alongside everything else I’m responsible for.

The question that helped was simple: where would the time actually come from?

After more than twenty years in software, I’m comfortable assessing whether I can do the work. Deciding whether I should take it on requires a different kind of honesty. I have to account for the life around the project, too.

If you’re building something alongside a job or family, that’s a useful question to sit with before you agree to more work. Look at your actual calendar. What would have to move? What would you have to give up? “I’ll squeeze it in” needs a better answer than “somewhere.”

My boundaries don’t mean much if I keep making exceptions whenever work becomes available. I’d already decided what I was willing to give the business. This was a chance to follow through on that decision.

In the end, I recommended a friend’s company. The project might fit their circumstances better than mine. I don’t know whether it’ll turn into work for them, but the organisation has another option to explore, and I could pay it forward without taking on the project myself.

I’m learning that running a business includes deciding which opportunities to leave alone. I still need to find clients, and declining this one doesn’t guarantee a better project will arrive. It does leave me with the time I chose to protect.

Sometimes you just gotta say no thanks.

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I started my business in my forties, alongside my job and the responsibilities that come with having a family. I wanted to find out whether I could build something of my own.

I had twenty years of software experience behind me. I’d worked across different industries and led teams. I knew how to build things.

What I didn’t have was a single client, or much experience finding one for myself.

My first project would take twice as long as I’d estimated, involve a change of freight carrier, and expose a mistake in my own process that could have undone weeks of my client’s work.

At the end, the client thanked me and “the team.”

I’m still thinking about that.

A friend made the introduction

A friend who does SEO and social media mentioned my name to a retailer she worked with. They needed help with their online store, particularly shipping. She knew I could build things and connected us.

That was how it started.

I’d spent plenty of time thinking about how to present my business. My first opportunity came through someone who understood what I could do and knew a person who needed it.

There’s a practical lesson there if you’re trying to get started: make it easy for people to explain your work to someone else.

“I build software” can mean almost anything. “I help businesses get their online stores working, including the awkward integrations” gives someone a situation in which to remember you.

Your first client might come through a different route. Mine came through a conversation I wasn’t even in.

The job looked straightforward

The client wanted a store where customers could order their products online.

The complication was delivery. Some products could travel as parcels. Others needed to move on pallets by freight. A customer might put both types in the same order.

They wanted customers to choose their products, see an actual delivery price, and complete the purchase.

That meant building an online store and connecting the shipping services so checkout could handle the products the business actually sold.

I estimated eight weeks.

It took sixteen.

Much of that extra time involved the original freight carrier’s delays and, eventually, moving to another carrier. The client understood those problems were outside my control. They weren’t upset with me over them.

The parts I hadn’t allowed enough room for

About four weeks in, I had to change where I was doing the work.

I hadn’t been able to get the required carrier-rate setup working in the development environment I was using. We moved the work onto the client’s actual store, which brought a different level of care to every change.

The lesson for me was to validate that critical shipping path earlier. It was central to the whole project. I should have established that it worked in the intended environment before building so much around it.

Then I needed access credentials from the freight carrier.

I emailed their specialist and waited. Twelve days went by without a reply.

Meanwhile, the original delivery date kept getting closer. I kept the client informed about what we were waiting for and how it affected the project. They understood that I couldn’t move that part of the work forward without the carrier’s response.

I couldn’t make that person respond. I could keep my client informed about what was missing, what it affected, and what I was doing about it.

That distinction became important throughout the project. Some dependencies were outside my control. Keeping the client informed was still my responsibility.

I spent days looking for a mistake in my code

When the credentials arrived, the shipping quotes took eighteen to twenty-five seconds to come back.

That was too slow for the checkout flow. The freight options weren’t appearing when they needed to.

I assumed I’d done something wrong. I spent days checking my integration.

Then I examined the timing information in the carrier’s responses. It indicated that the quote calculation itself was finishing in under half a second, while the response was taking much longer to reach us.

That gave me something concrete to investigate and document. I put together the request timings and the information returned by their system, then sent it to them.

It gave the carrier specific evidence to investigate and helped explain why the integration was stalling.

For anyone doing client work, this is a skill worth developing: learn to measure a problem and explain what the evidence actually shows.

You don’t need to make someone look bad. You need enough clarity to decide what happens next.

Then the client changed carriers

The client eventually ended the relationship with that freight carrier over its customer service. Their frustration was with the carrier, and we moved forward with a replacement.

I understood the decision. It also meant the integration I’d spent so much time working on needed to change.

I had about two weeks to rebuild it around a different carrier.

The replacement returned quotes in two to five seconds. We got it working and shipped.

It would be easy to tell that part as a story about pulling off a difficult deadline. What I took from it was how much a supplier’s service can affect a project.

I’d estimated the work I expected to do. I hadn’t allowed enough room for the waiting, investigation, and changes surrounding it.

The mistake that was mine

During all of this, my code repository had fallen about two months behind parts of the live store.

The client had been making changes too: phone numbers, shipping policies, page content. Normal things an owner should be able to update.

My local version no longer reflected all of that work.

If I’d deployed it without checking, I could have overwritten the client’s changes and put a placeholder phone number back on the store.

I caught it before deploying. Nothing was wiped.

It still bothers me.

The carrier problems were frustrating, but this was a gap in my own process. I needed to reconcile what had changed on the store before pushing my version over it.

Experience doesn’t excuse that. It’s a reason to take it seriously and change how I handle the next project.

Finishing meant handing it over properly

The store eventually went live.

It could quote parcel and freight delivery at checkout, including mixed orders. Customers could see a delivery price and place their order.

I also handed over a written handbook so the staff could run the store without depending on me for every routine task.

That mattered to me. The client needed something they could operate after the build was done.

The invoice was paid in full.

The client sent a message praising the store’s appearance, speed, and functionality, and saying how satisfied they were with the result.

What stayed with me was their reference to “the team.”

There is no team of employees. It’s me, working from a basement office.

I took those words as a sign that the experience had felt supported. The client had someone handling the problems, explaining the decisions, and seeing the work through.

That meant a lot after sixteen weeks of wondering how my first project was going to turn out.

What I’m taking into the next one

I want to check the riskiest dependency earlier. In this project, that was getting a real shipping quote all the way through checkout.

I want my estimates to account for work involving other companies, including what happens when access is delayed or a service doesn’t behave as expected.

I want a clear process for handling changes the client makes while I’m still building.

And I want to keep communicating while a problem is unresolved. An update can explain what’s happening even when it can’t yet announce a fix.

Twenty years in software didn’t prevent the setbacks. What it gave me was practice dealing with them: investigating, documenting, explaining what was happening, and choosing a next step when the original plan stopped working.

That’s part of what we bring when we start something in our forties. We already have experience we can use, even while learning how to run a business.

I’m one completed client project in. I still have plenty to figure out.

But now, when someone asks what my business does, I have a finished store, a client’s feedback, and a very specific story to tell.

I’m glad I took the chance.

What happened on your first client project that you hadn’t thought to put in the estimate? Reply and tell me.

Hey, it’s Jay.

I’ve spent more than 20 years building software and leading teams. I know how to solve problems, deliver a project, and build things people can use.

This year, I decided to put that experience behind my own business. I started Bunker41, building websites and software for small businesses.

I’m in my 40s. Starting something of my own has been scary, but I know what I bring to the table. I wanted to give myself a real chance to see what I could do with it.

Recently, I completed my first client project for ANP Office Furniture: a new Shopify store with a custom Purolator freight shipping integration.

Getting that project finished and receiving their testimonial felt pretty damn good. They trusted me to deliver something important to their business, and I delivered.

That’s a result I can stand behind. It gives me confidence going into the next conversation and the next project.

One client in, and I’m glad I started.

Something else I’m taking seriously after this year: word of mouth.

A chance encounter and word of mouth brought me client work. That experience reminded me how much opportunity there is in simply talking to people and letting them know what you do.

I’m building an online presence, and I want to get better at it. I’m also going to keep making time for actual conversations. Relationships matter to me, and they’re already making a difference in my business.

If you’re trying to get something started, tell people about it. Give them a clear idea of who you help and what you do. Ask about their work, too. Get to know the people around you.

You can do that today, wherever you are in building your business.

Alongside the client work, I’ve launched my own apps. They’re out there, and I’m working on getting them into more people’s hands and turning them into consistent income.

There’s work ahead of me there. I need to understand what makes someone try an app, keep using it, and decide it’s worth paying for. That deserves the same attention I give to building the product.

I’ll be sharing that work here, too.

One Person, Real Business is where I’ll write about building this business: finding clients, delivering projects, launching products, and deciding where to put my time. When I share advice, I’ll explain the experience behind it. When I’m trying something new, you’ll know that, too.

I want this business to support my family, give me more freedom, and let me do work I’m proud of. I’m willing to put in the effort to build it.

I’d love to connect with other people doing the same, especially anyone starting something in their 40s or beyond.

Hit reply and tell me what you’re building. I’d like to get to know the people reading this.

Jay

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